* (9:54) Wanting the GM to build the world instead of “yes-and” player input.
* (15:43) Why Wayne discarded some ideas he was excited about.
* (19:06) The passion for sharing stories.
* (22:06) Watching players engage with obstacles and NPCs.
* (26:06) Hopeful or despondent?
Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne
Episode 623 – too big to fail
May 13, 2024
* (0:29) Wayne has a problem: the Wardens from Dresden Files. Coming up with too many excuses for why powerful organizations don’t care about the characters’ problems.
* (7:14) Session Zero can help…or maybe not.
* (10:29) There’s always someone bigger, and maybe your allies lack what you need.
* (14:42) What if the characters are the backup? Or maybe they’re starting to get a reputation.
* (17:41) Not letting it become a chip on the GM’s shoulder. Players that hamstring themselves.
* (23:45) The assistance not being what the players expected.
* (27:54) Falling back to the mature answer.
Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne
Episode 622 – bringing your PC to life
Apr 17, 2024
* (0:30) What steps do we take to bring a character to life?
* (1:49) Ask what’s important.
* (6:53) Seeing the good and bad in a single trait.
* (8:06) Doug’s personality triangle model.
* (10:54) Demonstrating character quirks.
* (16:34) Making characters that both have and express personal growth.
* (18:57) Taking a hobby, off-topic skill, or development path. Keeping your character in continuity.
* (23:11) Practicing a character.
* (29:43) Developing your idea in other creative media, but consider leaving a gap before the game begins.
Episode 621 – juice is worth the squeeze
Mar 31, 2024
* (0:29) In defense of technology at the gaming table. Caleb’s setup with Owlbear Rodeo.
* (5:13) Dan’s Lion King sing-a-long and Wayne’s Ghostbusters game.
* (6:27) The deeper pool of online players, including AIs. Remoting in a missing player for an in-person game.
* (14:04) Working distance and distraction into the game.
* (17:54) Digital storage and organization. The wonder of CTRL-F.
* (25:21) Minimalization of the gaming experience.
* (30:01) Dodging some issues by allowing only one person to have technology. The visual obstruction created by laptops and such.
* (41:01) Getting digital audio to work for you.
* (45:00) Balancing it all out. Advantages, disadvantages, familiarity, and the passage of time.
Hosts: Caleb, Dan, Mary, Wayne
Bonus Episode 101 – WGM 1: dead air
Mar 25, 2024
I decided to skip over the Iron GM and go for a Tungsten GM. The ingredient? All broadcasts cease because something won’t let them get through. What’s the game plot?
Also, the Fear the Con 2024 Kickstarter is now live here!
Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne
Episode 620 – juice ain’t worth the squeeze
Feb 15, 2024
* (0:30) Dan runs a game a bit too literally.
* (4:12) The intersection of technology and roleplaying in a way that isn’t required by the game.
* (7:32) Why multimedia doesn’t pay-off the way it does in other forms of storytelling.
* (13:36) The prep time technology adds, and the stability it takes away.
* (15:59) The time spent digging up the right asset on-the-spot.
* (20:52) The physical space taken up by technology. Playing “follow the leader” at a subconscious level.
Hosts: Dan, Doug, Mary, Wayne
Episode 619 – a closed setting
Jan 11, 2024
* (0:29) Why talk about intelligence? The Why Files episode about Cicada 3301.
* (9:24) A game takes an unhelpfully long break, only to be replaced by another RPG.
* (12:44) The lack of a bottomless “buffet of ideas” in a closed setting.
* (14:24) Use minimal starting information to give you room to work.
* (18:12) How to run a school (everyone go play Persona 5).
* (24:48) Create a wide variety of NPCs and give them their own lives.
* (30:38) Keeping the party together, even if it doesn’t quite make sense.
* (31:57) PC-specific NPCs, so you know the players are bought it.
Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne
Bonus Episode 100 – becoming the curmudgeon
Nov 07, 2023
* (0:22) Picking out the point we became curmudgeons and what exactly that means.
* (4:48) Being too set in our ways.
* (11:19) The self-destruction that comes with stagnation.
* (21:32) Wii have a solution.
* (24:32) Ducking new games while at a convention. Playing The Quiet Year on an airplane.
* (32:57) The role of pragmatism. Why expand your horizons when no one lets you go there, anyway?
* (38:43) There’s always going to be something wrong.
* (1:43) Dan re-reads the D&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. Wayne watches Secrets of Blackmoor. The inspiration D&D’s creators drew from Strategos.
* (6:38) The rather disjointed rules of early RPGs.
* (8:23) The heavy crunch of early RPGs that might be as much unearned reputation as reality.
* (13:02) Why an early RPG may have needed to describe concepts that would be misinterpreted as immutable rules.
* (16:06) Narrative examples of play.
* (19:17) Separating old games from OSR games. Conveyed interpretation and social tradition.
* (27:07) The shortcuts around setting building, and how rules may have gotten caught up in those.
Hosts: Dan, Mary, Wayne
Bonus Episode 99 – AI creativity
Jan 27, 2023
* (0:36) An odd tangent on names.
* (3:39) A conversation about AI art. Some parameters we’re putting on this episode. AI art wins a fine arts competition.
* (8:08) An admittedly non-technical overview of how AI generally creates its work. Syntax versus semantics.
* (17:43) AI creations as a starting point instead of the final product. Why the lack of semantics may distinguish what inspires humans as opposed to AIs.
* (29:32) The positive impact of AI creativity, contrasted with the intellectual property and monetary concerns.
* (37:02) The human-seeded meta-thought used by AI, and the inevitability of its adoption across multiple industries.
* (47:26) After taking jobs, technology may also improve lives and push humanity forward. Automating simple tasks or “shifting them left”.
* (54:45) The financial incentive to use AI art versus the status incentive to use human art.
Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne
Some of the sample AI art Dan made while playing around with an app…
A man with two beards that’s holding a third beard (stupid beard hog), Jesus with hot dogs for fingers, and…OH NO! Its mini-Jesus off the ropes!
What’s that Lassie? Jesus is here? And he thinks our dogs are gnolls? And Gabriel is also a dog?
OK, so now we’ve got gnolls with underbites, some random people in the background, Jesus with John Wick levels of determination, and…what the hell is that thing in the lower-right!?
What the AI thought Gnarl should look like. I’m totally going to stat this out and use it in a fantasy game.
Episode 606 – contexting the OGL
Jan 18, 2023
* (0:30) Giving a remote episode a try. We have a fix for Dan’s audio that should improve the quality on our next remote show.
* (1:42) Catching up with Brodeur and DJ, who was on episode 466 to talk about BuJoRPG.
* (4:43) Putting some parameters on the topic.
* (9:42) Does Wizards of the Coast hate you? Envy other publishers? Or just not understand the market?
* (16:36) Why people went along with the OGL to begin with. A genuine belief that some people in the mix have the best of intentions.
* (24:47) Why care at all?
* (29:23) The silent majority that may neither know nor care this is all happening.
* (36:21) Why this might be a good thing. The episode on Dan’s resentment of what D&D represents, despite his enjoyment of the game.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, DJ, Wayne
Episode 605 – dosing out setting
Jan 05, 2023
* (0:44) Friday night chit-chat on Discord each week, starting at 8pm Central.
* (2:18) Fear the Con 2023 dates have been reserved with the hotel for June 16th and 17th of 2023, with the Wing Night on June 15th.
* (3:37) Wayne preps his players for a Savage Worlds: Alpha Flight game.
* (8:18) Learning through trial-and-error by running homebrews and setting-dense games.
* (10:42) Give your players a little homework.
* (15:04) Where will the game begin?
* (20:37) What the characters need or want.
* (24:53) Trickling out more information as the game goes on.
* (31:31) Pay careful attention to the questions your players ask.
Hosts: Dan, Julia, Mary, Wayne
Bonus Episode 98 – tired tropes
Dec 15, 2022
* (0:22) The villain as the dark inverse of the hero.
* (9:20) A big CGI fight at the end that seems visually out of continuity.
* (16:06) Zombies and Lovecraft.
* (20:37) The freedom to like or dislike, and how little that says about you as a person.
* (23:33) Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, and Disney.
* (26:59) Let’s not be too reductive.
* (34:26) Maybe we’ve just been around too long and seen too many stories.
* (37:15) Elves with short hair.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne
Bonus Episode 97 – manis, pedis, and fandoms
Nov 14, 2022
* (0:24) Brodeur recommends a manicure and pedicure to Dan.
* (5:58) Dan, Wayne, and their muscle tension.
* (11:24) A straight-razor shave and the thrill of death.
* (15:56) Fandoms that (at least temporarily) put people off from the product they love.
* (28:08) On anime.
* (31:37) The need to be inviting within gaming, since it’s a social hobby.
* (37:56) Gratuitous violence and opinion as identity.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne
Episode 604 – crapping on an ending
Nov 07, 2022
* (0:28) Brodeur flees to Oregon.
* (4:08) Failure comes to East Texas University.
* (7:26) Dividing the blame between the players and Game Master.
* (11:40) Player silence and passivity.
* (17:30) Things lost for lack of time.
* (19:34) Substance use, depression, and the option of just narrating the ending.
* (26:32) Was there a post-mortem with the players? Not judging a whole campaign by its ending.
* (30:09) If the players don’t know how to answer, ask a more specific question.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Wayne
Episode 603 – ending without a boss fight
Oct 29, 2022
* (1:53) Wayne ends a D&D campaign without a boss fight.
* (3:11) The mutual theft of ideas between video games and tabletop roleplaying games.
* (8:00) Considering all the ways a story can end.
* (13:18) Another example from a D&D game.
* (21:06) Post-campaign, no-boss epilogues. Player freedom in shaping the ending.
* (28:02) Redefining the game in a character-centric way.
* (32:33) Allowing other solutions to small problems and other endings to the game.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne
Episode 602 – personalizing a module
Sep 13, 2022
* (0:29) Brodeur’s post-Gen-Con review. (I know, we’re right on top of the latest news.) A shoutout to Imagining Games, Acheron Books, and RogueOperative.
* (8:02) Customizing modules for your players and characters.
* (11:48) Modules as a framework, not a full script.
* (18:26) Know the module well enough that you can deconstruct it into its components.
* (24:37) An imaginary scenario using a well-known story as a module, adjusted to an obviously unique character.
* (36:44) How the whole context of a pre-written scenario can be changed by just swapping proper nouns.
* (42:32) Separating story-writing from story-telling.
Episode 601 – leveraging PC backgrounds
Aug 17, 2022
* (0:29) A listener, James, gets us talking about integrating player-character backstories into your game. It starts with the players giving you something to work with.
* (3:01) Sitting for too long on too much information, or mining the backstory abusively.
* (7:43) Finding the possible connections between backstories.
* (11:08) Let’s do it live! Dan sets up a D&D game with Wayne as his player. Building story by eliminating coincidences and undefined areas.
* (19:22) Wayne sets up a Skies of Glass game with Brodeur as his player. Remembering that NPCs have their own lives that still go on, even when the PC isn’t around.
* (30:02) What’s the “therefore” there for? Continuing thoughts that seemed otherwise complete.
* (31:42) Integrating character backgrounds into a story that’s already written. Even the most fleshed-out plot still has gaps that can be filled with player-made content.
* (37:59) Too little, too much, or no background at all.
* (42:35) Punting Mary’s insight, because it deserves its own episode.
* (44:32) Paying attention to backgrounds for what should be important in your game, because it’s important to that player.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Mary, Wayne
Episode 600 – passivity and dysfunction
Jul 29, 2022
* (0:29) How awful can a few years be? (Spoilers: Multiple things got worse since this recording!)
* (3:49) An experiment in unequal levels of preparation and participation.
* (8:34) Not all players will bring the same level of contribution, nor do all games encourage it.
* (14:32) Pattern versus incidence.
* (18:52) Reasons to not just sit it out.
* (20:43) Why using past experiences of what was to infer what ought to be may not be the best approach.
* (25:11) Setting expectations for the division of labor.
Hosts: Brodeur, Dan, Julia, Wayne
Bonus Episode 96 – Fear the Con 2022 report
Jul 05, 2022
* (0:24) Releasing episodes out of order.
* (1:24) The little convention that could, despite how hard life tried to stop it.
* (6:59) All of the hurdles that weren’t COVID.
* (14:00) The obstacles that came up during the convention.
* (24:24) In spite of everything arrayed against it, the con went really well.
* (31:42) Thanking Eric Van Note for the picture of Gnarl, which you can see here. You can contact him for your own commission at: vannoteillustration@gmail.com
* (33:50) Wishing we’d had more time to talk to people and paced ourselves better.
* (39:11) A request, an idea, and a placeholder. June 15th, 16th, and 17th are the tentative dates for Fear the Con 2023.
* (43:46) A big “thank you” to our community!
Hosts: Brodeur, Caleb, Dan, Wayne
Episode 599 – splitting the difference
Jun 14, 2022
* (0:29) Interrogating Mary on her gaming history.
* (25:07) Fear the Con on June 16th – 18th, 2022. The room block number is 2413940. You can place your room reservations at this link, which should prepopulate the con dates.
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